Fresh Strawberry Cake With Cream Cheese Icing

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Fresh Strawberry Cake is my mother’s favorite and a guaranteed showstopper. I’ve served this at baby showers, bridal showers, and spring brunches. My favorite place to serve it, though, is at my own dinner table.

I’ve had strawberries on the brain lately. This time of year, the prices have gone down and they are so inexpensive that you can purchase whatever you need for cooking and an extra carton just to nibble. I eat them all on the way home, then throw the container in the trash on my way in the house. The trick is always to hide the evidence!

Put them in a big old plastic bag and crush them a bit. You can use a rolling pin if you want to be civilized but somedays call for a few fun karate chops!

*The amount of strawberries needs to be one cup after they are crushed, not before.

You can use any method of crushing that you like but I find a plastic bag and a can of somethin‘ works just great.

You know, they have all of these gadgets for the kitchen nowadays but it just seems like most of them are more of an inconvenience to keep up with and clean after wards than just using what you have on hand.

Personally, I’m so unorganized that if I did had all these gadgets they made I’d never know where I put the things anyway.

In a large mixing bowl, place cake mix, milk, oil, eggs, and gelatin.

Mix that up with an electric mixer until you have a smooth, creamy, pink batter, about two minutes.

Add in your crushed strawberries, juice and all.

Mix that up again.

Now grease and flour two round cake pans.

Divide your batter evenly among the cake pans

(I really prefer to make sheet cakes and skip all of this dividing batter nonsense but I’m doing this for y’all coz I love ya so much ~hugs your neck~)

Bake these at 350 for 25-30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Remove from oven and allow to sit in the pans for ten minutes before turning out to cool completely.

Now lets make us some cream cheese icing.

We’re gonna need cream cheese, butter, and powdered sugar.

Important note: If you want to decorate your cake as I have done in these photos, you will need to double this recipe.

Your cream cheese and butter really need to be room temperature so set them out earlier in the day before starting this.

Place your butter, cream cheese, and powdered sugar in a bowl. Mix ’em up til they’re nice and creamy smooth, scraping down sides as needed.

Fresh Strawberry Cake With Cream Cheese Icing

Ingredients

Icing

8ounceCream Cheeseroom temp

4Tablespoonsbutterroom temp

3Cupsconfectioner's sugar

Instructions

Grease and flour two 8 inch round baking pans or one 9x13 inch pan.

Wash and cut the tops of strawberries. Coarsely chop them. Gently mash strawberries by placing them in a large plastic bag and rolling over it with a rolling pin or large can.You need to measure out one cup once they are mashed.

Place cake mix, milk, gelatin mix, vegetable oil, and eggs in large mixing bowl. Beat with an electric mixer until smooth and creamy, about two minutes or so. Add in strawberries and juice, mix again until well combined. Pour into baking pans.

Bake at 350 for 25-30 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. If using two round pans, allow to sit for ten minutes before turning out of pans to cool completely. If baking in 9x13 pan, simply allow to cool in pan.

Combine all icing ingredients and mix with electric mixer until smooth and creamy. Ice cooled cake.

Store cake in refrigerator.

Ice cake. Store in the refrigerator.

Notes

Important note: If you want to decorate your cake as I have done in these photos, you will need to double this recipe.

*Some people add 1/2 cup crushed, drained strawberries to this icing as well. I leave them out to make the cake a bit prettier and easier to ice but feel free to add them in for more great strawberry flavor! Just mix them in after your icing is smooth and creamy and all other ingredients have been added.

Girrrrl you know who you’re talking to here, right? I’d be thrilled to have your recipe!!!!! If you want, feel free to post it right here and then we can all enjoy it! If you prefer, email me at christy@southernplate.com
You know I want it and you are an angel for offering!
Gratefully,
Christy

Hey , all you new folks out there. You have found a treasusre mine when you found this site. Not only are the recipes wonderful ,tasty
and most easy to make , there are traditions handed down through
Christy’s family. Christy is the most heartwarming and wonderful person I have met . So down to earth and my kind of person. Her hubby and children are involved also and it is so family oriented.
I know you will come to love her as much as I do.
Love you Dahling Christy.

I can’t even begin to tell you how dear you are to me. I love you so very much!!! You are one of the key people I was talking about in my video when I said I can’t ever see the world as a bad place with folks like you in it.
Gratefully,
Christy

How yummy! And good idea considering I just bought 1gal of strawberries a few minutes ago. Girl, what a sweet way to get to know you. I feel like since our babies are the same age…we could just sit down in the yard and gab away while we let them play! I thought about “Jesus recycles” when Emily was tellin’ me about Jesus gettin’ to go on a donkey ride while all the people threw palm trees at him! Oh…if y’all just lived in South Carolina!

Keri you are so right! We could sit down in the grass and make necklaces for them out of weeds. I wonder who would find the most four leaf clovers? I found five the other day, one right after the other, while I was pacing barefoot in the yard talking on the phone. I didn’t have the heart to pick them though, I felt lucky enough just seeing them 🙂

I’ll be headed up to South Carolina in October! Maybe we could at least gab over a diet dr pepper!
Gratefully,
Christy

This sounded delicious. I really wanted to serve this for dessert on Easter. I followed the directions to a tee. When the cake was finished baking, I carefully removed the layers from the oven and put them on cooling racks. After 10 or so minutes I went to remove the layers from the pans so they could cool completely. Lo and behold, the layers had fallen. I was SO upset. After I cooled off, I went back to the store and bought a second set of ingredients. Followed the directions again … same exact results. I’m done.

Hello Upset, I sure wish we had another name for you as that is quite negative and I’m sure doesn’t define you! A friend and I have been testing cake mixes lately and we’ve found that Duncan Hines has changed their formulation and a few of their mixes are constant flops, sinking each time. I wonder if you happened to use a Duncan mix? This kills me because I have been a devotee for years of that brand of mix.

Oh my Miss Elizabeth!! Did you know Granny Jordan, too? I’m so glad you took the time to leave this comment, I feel like its Granny looking down and smiling on me. I’ve often wondered what she’d say about Southern Plate.
Gratefully,
Christy

ooh I would love that, too!
I really like to mix sugar free vanilla pudding with half of the milk it calls for and then fold in my cool whip for icing. I use the light cool whip and then there is so much less guilt and like you say, it is SO LIGHT tasting and springlike!!!

you know, you could make this in a 9×13 and then cut it after its all done and iced and put in those sandwich size rubbermaid containers to freeze for little treats when you have company or just need one…ok I’m brainstorming here so you can have this cake! lol

~SQUEALS~ Thank you for the love!!!! I really really really hope I get to meet you in Houston!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh my… my mom always made me smush strawberries the hard way growing up with a potato masher… took forever which is why I got the task. 🙂 I love the way you do it. Wish I had known that method a long time ago!!!!!

Can’t wait to try this one! My daughter loves strawberries and her birthday is next week. Since she is having a Strawberry themed birthday…this will go perfectly. I’m so excited to try it! Looks great!

How did you know I brought home a big ol’ container of strawberries that need to be fixed right away AND got some vegan gelatin equivalent (so I don’t look at a recipe needing Jello and think, Darn, gotta experiment with the agar again! If you knew my track record with agar you’d see what a heart-sinking thought that is).

Thank you especially for the little chat. I feel like we just spoke over the back fence, or met at the post office. Don’t feel so alone – you touch many, many lives, and all for the good. I can’t think of anyone who I’d rather see flown to New York and feted and interviewed and wined and dined! Does the family get to come too? Snatch those kids out of school and take ’em if you can; wasn’t it Mark Twain who said something about never letting schooling interfere with education?

This is the recipe I use except I substitute applesauce for the oil. I made one a couple of weeks ago for the first time in many years. First time I had made it for my hubby and he thought he had died and gone to heaven. Keep it in fridge and it gets better each day! I must admit my icing was not quite as nice looking as yours. I added fresh crushed strawberries to it too and never could get it to thicken up as much as I would have liked…but it sure tasted good.

Christy,
Strawberries and Cream Cheese… oh my goodness I am in heaven. It is so pretty I might have skip the sheet cake and make layers just so I can look at it.
The girls are coming over on Saturday and now I know what I will be serving them.
I am so happy you share all these wonderful recipes.
Thank you

Christy, The strawberry cake sounds and looks divine. I can hardly wait to try it for the next Moss birthday dinner. Even more appealing, though, are your heartfelt comments in the video. You’re special, dearie. Just keep your feet on the ground and your heart in Alabama. We’re all pulling for you and praying for you!

This was always one of my dad’s favorite recipes. We made it in a sheet cake pan and would drop it on the counter several times.~I mean we held it about 5 inches in the air and dropped it 2 or 3 times.~ Those air bubbles just flew away.
I say a notice in the paper a couple of weeks ago, Barbara Streisand will also be at the Book Expo. Can’t remember whether I’ve told you that or not. See VERY IMPORTANT people are going to be there. This includes our VERY SPECIAL FRIEND, CHRISTY JORDAN!!! Make sure they know your first name is Christy, because there is another author whose name is Jordan Christy. I can’t wait to see New York through your eyes.

Try this one. My son made his first one at age 3. Mix 1 pk Strawberry Jell-O with 1 cup thawed frozen or smashed fresh strawberries. Grease a 9×13 baking dish; place one cup miniature marshmallows in bottom evenly. Prepare a box of strawberry cake mix (or your cake) and spread evenly on top of marshmallows. Top with strawberry jello mix. Bake at 350 for about 30 minutes. The strawberries will sink to the bottom and it is great hot… kind of like an upside down cake.The kids liked eating it right away and it is still their favorite as he turns 35 this year! Love you and just putting it all in at once… works for me.

I’ve been on the road for a bit and then settling back into home-life now that I’m back in the states and let me tell you, reading this post just made it all come together!! Seriously, this post made my day. I was laughing at all of your little jokes and I LOVE your attitude towards following those stuffy, old baking instructions. lol

I literally am going to make some of this cake tonight!!! I have never attempted something of this caliber before so it’s going to be interesting!! hehe Wish me luck!

Also, Christy, I loved the video! You make me, and hopefully everyone else, feel like I’m truly a part of SP life and like we’re all some big, happy (and likely crazy if many more are like me hehe) family. I wish you luck on your book tour and KNOW you will enjoy NYC. It’s a big place though so don’t be upset if you don’t get to see it all. I was there for two weeks and didn’t even scratch the surface of all there is to see and do.

Thanks again for your wonderful posts and all the work you do for us. And since you said you’re a hugger…. *hugs you and the rest of the family reeeeaaaaalllly tight*

Thanks for the video chat/update. Can’t wait until your cookbook arrives – should be a great read! This cake reminds me of one my mom used to make – we were allergic to strawberries, so she used chopped sweet Michigan cherries, cherry jello, and cool whip for the frosting. Add a half teaspoon of almond flavoring to the batter. Yum yum

To adapt your cake for Katy’s current color preference, why not orange jello and chopped up mandarin oranges or swirls of orange marmalade in the batter- dye the frosting orange, and she will be in orange-glo heaven!

I’m sitting here recovering from some unexpected surgery, and have been spending my hours pouring through your recipes!

This strawberry cake looks awesome! Can’t wait to try it! I’ve tried several of your recipes and they are great. My birthday is October 9th, and I already know what I am asking for – your book!

Thanks for the video. My daddy is from Mentone, AL, and I love to hear that Alabama accent. Now, I was born and raised in Texas, so I have an accent myself, which in truth is much like yours, by I like to delude myself into thinking that I don’t! LOL

Oooh, I see Pinkalicious cupcakes in the making….Sydney, my 4yr old says, “Thank you, Mrs. Christy!!”. She’s already asked for a strawberry cake for her next birthday….it’s not until December and there is no way we’re waiting! 🙂
Hugs!!

Christy you would not believe what is sittin’ on my counter right now. Well, technically it’s been sittin’ there about a week {or maybe longer blush blush}, but we won’t go there LOL… yep. The makings of a strawberry cake. Just haven’t gotten to it. I love how we constantly do this! 🙂 Hope you’re doing well. I don’t get around as much as I’d like to visit, but I think about ya all the time!

This cake looks great. My husband will be glad when I make it. I have been making a lot of bundt cakes lately. I have an old fashioned heavy glass dome cake plate and cover and I love to leave him a cake on the counter while I am at work. Cream cheese icing…mmmmmm my favorite.
Mary

I use sugar free jello when I make it and applesauce instead of oil. Of course, by the time you add the icing with all that powdered sugar you havent saved any calories but at least we tried, huh? My husband suggested next time just making it in a bundt pan and forgoing the icing. He says the cake is great without it.